368 Father Tyrrel in Farm Street [1900 



with regard to the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. Was Mivart 

 bound to accept the Pope's Encyclical ? He said the Pope's Encyclical, 

 though an interesting pronouncement as being made by the Pope, was 

 in no way binding, though the extreme theologians maintained that 

 it was. Vaughan had no right to demand of Mivart adhesion to it, 

 an adhesion which was beyond what was ever demanded of converts 

 before their reception into the Church. Mivart's fault was one of 

 temper. He should have held his tongue and let the Congregation 

 say what they would. I asked him whether he knew Meynell, but he 

 said, ' No, not personally,' and added that as to his Liberalism of 

 thought, he did not mind how liberal a man was so long as he retained 

 a definite basis for his ideas. By this I suppose he meant that there 

 must be a certain bed-rock of faith in the Church, however ill-defined. 

 We talked of Stonyhurst, and he was surprised when I praised his 

 system of protecting boys from all contact with evil. I said it 

 had been good for me if not for everybody. He called it 

 a French system, not peculiar to the Jesuits, and said it was much 

 altered now at Stonyhurst. Certainly, Father Tyrrel is as enlightened 

 a priest as I have ever met. He agreed with me that it was impossible 

 not to believe in Evolution, whatever might be pronounced at Rome. 

 ' Rome,' he said, ' is two hundred years behind-hand. They never read 

 any modern work of criticism there, and do not take the trouble to 

 understand the opinions they condemn.' Forty years ago a priest so 

 outspoken would have saved my faith. 



" Herbert Vivian looked in on me, fresh from Abyssinia. He tells 

 me the Abyssinian army has just been beaten by the Mohammedans 

 of the Southern Province. He gave a curious account of the French 

 colonists at Zeila, who sleep, he says, naked in the streets with the 

 native women, and who do every kind of violence, without restraint, 

 against the natives. 



"26th May. — Old Philip Webb came down for the day with Cock-, 

 erell, a worthy old fellow, who is leaving off work at his trade of 

 architect, and is searching for a hermitage in which to end his days. 

 He has been too honest to make his fortune, and talks of living in a 

 £10 cottage. I shall try and find him one. 



" 2&th May. — All is satisfactorily settled about the Khedive's visit 

 to England, Lady Lytton writes from Balmoral that he is to be lodged 

 at Buckingham Palace and the Queen will give him private audience. 



" gth June. — Roberts is now in Pretoria. Our country fools have 

 been in ecstasies again over this, though it is quite manifest that both 

 Bloemfontein and Pretoria have been purposely evacuated by the Boers 

 who have not lost a gun or hardly a man in their retreat. The papers 

 are all saying the war is over, but I think it may well last till next year. 

 The Boers' campaigning season begins in October, and if they can 



